Rhyme and form, sounds

In poetry sounds are made to play a part in the meaning and impact of a poem. When describing the sounds of words you must not separate them from their meanings. Used sensitively, sounds can enact meanings, that is to say, we can hear the meaning in the sounds. There are some literary techniques which are used in poetry:
• alliteration;
• consonance;
• assonance;
• onomatopoeia.

Alliteration is the repetion of consonants:
“Stare for the sake of the souls of the slain birds sailing”.
(D.Thomas)
Alliteration often helps to create a poem’s distinctive tone:
“On the bald street breaks the blank day”.
(Shelley).
The feeling of a lonely poet oppressed by the return of morning is enacted in the regularly spaced words beginning with “b”.

Consonance is the repetion of two or more consonants like in
“heat and hate”;
“live and love”;
“slim and slender”.

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds.

Onomatopoeia is the name given to the effect of sounds of words imitating the sounds of the object.
In writing about the four technical terms it has not been possible to exclude other ways of characterizing sounds in poetry. The sounds in a poem might be characterized according to manner of speech:
- gentle; incisive;
- whispering; piering;
- strident; flat.
- forthright;
- smooth;
There are also words that describe the nature of sounds:
- deep;
- harsh;
- grating;
- light;
- shrill.

Rhyme is sameness of sounds of the endings of two or more words at the ends of lines of verse:
“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.”
(R. Frost)
There are two types of rhyme:
• masculine which occurs when words are monosyllabic;
• feminine which occurs when words are polysyllabic.
Most rhyme in English is masculine. It is worth noticing that masculine rhyme often sounds settled and determined, whereas feminine rhyme is fluid and musical.
Poets use rhyme to empphasize important words in two ways:
• by frequent use of rhyme;
• by using internal rhyme.
Internal rhyme occurs when a word within a line rhymes with the one at the end
“And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds
And binding with briars my joys and desires”.
(Blake)
Internal rhyme emphasizes that ‘briars’ are binding ‘desires’ and increases the pace of the line so that the dark, purposeful priests seem unstoppable. By emphasising, ‘briars’ and ‘desires’, internal rhyme enacts the conflict in the poem: the priests want to discipline and inflict pain upon someone who wants to express their feelings.
Half-rhyme is a certain poetic device when words either do or do not rhyme. This device (incompleteness of half-rhyme) helps the author to express discover or disharmony of the world. Rhymes usually occur in 3 forms:
(1) discrete units (couplets);
(2) interlaced;
(3) enclosed.
(1) When a poet writes in couplets, the rhyme sections form distinct units:
---------- restored A
---------- word     A
---------- fall         B
---------- all          B
(2) The more usual pattern of rhyming is when the rhymes are interlaced.
---------- days  A
---------- late   B
---------- ways A
---------- great B
---------- desire C
---------- mind  D
---------- fire    C
---------- kind   D
(3) Enclosed rhymes:
---------- land  A
---------- law   B
---------- leap  C
---------- sleep C
---------- prow B
---------- sand  A

Stanza forms.
The simplest form of stanza is the rhyming couplet. A very common couplet is rhymed iambic pentameters. Stazas of 3 lines are rare in English.
The most common stanza is the quatrain. This four-line stanza is used in ballads and lyrical verse. It can be structured in a number of ways:
ABCB ABAB ABCA
ABBA AABB
There are stanza forms of five, six, seven, eight and nine lines in length.

Sonnet forms.
A sonnet is a 14-line poem. It is usually formed in one of two ways:
• an 8-line section followed by a 6-line one is called a Petrarchan sonnet;
• three quatrains and a concluding couplet is called a Shakespearean sonnet.

Tasks.
• Read the poem paying particular attention to how the poets use sounds. Write about how the sounds contribute to the meaning of the poems.
• Read the poem paying particular attention to the effects of rhymes and the appropriateness of stanza forms. Write about any rhymes you think are particularly successful, and about how the form of a stanza is appropriate to the meaning of a poem.
• What is the effect of the rhyme scheme upon the mood of the poem?
• What is the effect of the assonance (alliteration) in the poem?
• Would you describe the sound effects as onomatopoeic? If so, what is the effect created?